Squeaky Eyes - Television Tropes & Idioms

Now THAT is one loud blinker. Woke the cat up even.

— Matt Chapman (of Homestar Runner fame), Ron Planet - Issue #26

Many animated characters have surprisingly noisy eyes. One can't blink in a cartoon without making all variety of noises.

Most likely, these evolved from depictions of blinking in non-moving Sequential Art. Rather than devoting whole panels to a character moving their eyelids up and down, the artist would apply an onomatopoeia or an Unsound Effect to get across the point that the character is blinking. Manga tended to use "piku", while western comics used "blink blink".

Somehow these "sounds" carried over into animation. Anime characters make sounds like "poit" or something vaguely reminiscent of "piku". Western cartoon characters make a "plunk" or "plink" sound.

These sound effects are usually reserved for intentional blinking, the blinking that indicates confusion or incomprehension. Frequent, involuntary blinking (like the kind you're doing right now) is left silent, because it would be very distracting otherwise. Unless, of course, said involuntary blinking is a twitch.

A subtrope of Wacky Sound Effect. Compare Mickey Mousing, Lull Destruction.

Examples

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Anime & Manga

Arika in Mai-Otome does this a lot.
The girls in Azumanga Daioh sometimes have audible blinks.
Damn near every blink in This Ugly Yet Beautiful World has an audible ploit sound.
Happens regularly to the girls in Petite Princess Yucie, especially Yucie.
Sailor Moon: Usagi's eyes make "plink" sounds when she transforms in Sailor Moon. Also, one-episode occasions of eye-noise happens.
Emporio Ivankov in One Piece has an attack called "Death Wink" ("Hell Wink" for the improved version) which is Exactly What It Says on the Tin; blinking so hard it produces a shockwave.
Happens in an episode the English dub of Card Captor Sakura after Tomoyo (Madison in the dub) brings Sakura back to attention.
Urusei Yatsura. Lum and Ataru do this at least once. Lum does it when she and Ataru are trapped inside a container and are about to kiss. Ataru does it after the container falls apart and reveals that they're surrounded.

Comic Books

In Jeff Smith's Bone, the sound of Fone Bone rubbing his eyes is written out as "squinky squinky".

Films — Live-Action

In Undercover Brother. After Mr. Feather chopped through the title character's Afro during a fight, he had a Squeaky Eyes moment while blinking and looking smugly at Undercover Brother.
Emily's eye makes a squeaking sound in Tim Burton's Corpse Bride — not when she blinks, but when it falls out/gets pushed back in. Rather more justifiable.

Live-Action TV

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon does this occasionally, which comes off as rather weird and disconcerting.
The episode "200" from Stargate SG-1, during a Star Trek parody. Colonel Carter, as a thin analog of Lt. Uhura, has squeaky blinking syndrome.
Doctor Who : It's incredible how loud the Doctor and Donna's eyes are when they're reunited. Granted, there's a door, a room, and a window between them, so they have to have SOME way to communicate, but STILL...

Video Games

In The Lost Mind of Dr. Brain, sometimes Rathbone gets disintegrated except for his eyes, which then blink without eyelids.

Western Animation

Expect this when a Hello Nurse starts batting her eyelashes at anyone. Though it tends to sound more clicky than squeaky in that instance.
Zorak on Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Cartoon Planet, and The Brak Show would sometimes make an audible "plunk" noise when he blinked. One skit on Cartoon Planet had Space Ghost making fun of this: "Loud-eyes!"
- In another skit, Space Ghost tries to get Zorak to teach him to make the same noise. All he could manage was a comical squeak. Zorak explains what his problem is:
  Zorak: First, you have to be funky-fresh.
  Space Ghost: I'm funky! I'm fresh!
  Zorak: Next, you have to have eyelashes.
  Space Ghost: Oh.

Which makes no sense when you think about it, but that's probably part of the joke.

At one point Zorak blinks in rapid succession for afew seconds.''plunkplunkplunkplunkplunkplunkplunkplunk..."

This could be an homage to Looney Tunes. Often when a character blinked in those, there would be a xylophone or a violin pluck sound effect accompanying it.
On The Simpsons when forced to wear uniforms the school children lose all personality and even begin to blink in unison, creating a pronounced "squish". Skinner responds "I love that sound".
Also happened in one Drawn Together episode (that one with the sit-in). Especially ~~SpongeBob SquarePants~~ Wooldoor Sockbat.
XR from Buzz Lightyear Of Star Command makes a vaguely mechanical noise when he blinks; this may be justified by the fact that due to being a robot nearly everything he does results in a mechanical noise.
Among its many Mickey Mousing techniques, The Fairly OddParents makes active use of noisy, often simultaneous blinking to illustrate confusion.
Avatar The Last Airbender, especially Momo.
Orko from He-Man and the Masters of the Universe sometimes makes very odd noises when he blinks.
Dexters Laboratory and The Powerpuff Girls both use plinks for eye blinks and violin chords or swishes for eye movements, as part of a whole repertory of stock in-house cartoon sounds. Probably used on lots of other Hanna-Barbera and Cartoon Network Productions shows as well.
My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic is very similar to the above in this regard.
Characters in SpongeBob SquarePants make audible blinking noises at times during Beats. The most common sound is shared with Squidward's footsteps.
Sid and Sue of Three Delivery tend to blink audibly when Tobey says or does something dopey or bizarre.
Henry and June on Ka Blam!. Same with Sniz, Fondue, and the Off-Beats.
The eponymous mouse of the German Die Sendung mit der Maus *
The Other Wiki compares it to Mister Rogers' Neighborhood
has very audible eyes. (It sounds more like "clap" and is done with castanets.)
Horrible Histories does this in every blink.